At the vicar's jubilee in Eltham with Peter Wakeman in the field by the vicarage in the September of 1833

“in many of the homes of Eltham ..... so impressive were the demonstrations that took place [to commemorate his fifty years in office in 1833] that the children and grandchildren of those who witnessed them find to this day, a congenial theme for conversational purposes.”*

I still find it quite amazing that an event that took place in the September of 1833 could still be remembered so vividly over seventy years after it happened.

Of course it may well be that this has been exaggerated in the retelling, but I have no doubt that R.R.C Gregory who commented on the impact of the celebrations to mark the jubilee of the Reverend John Kenward Shaw Brooke’s tenure as vicar were accurate.

Mr Gregory was an excellent historian whose meticulous account of the history of Eltham is well researched and not apt to linger on the might have been.

John Kenward Shaw Brooke was vicar of St John’s in Eltham from the age of 24 in 1783 till his death in 1840.

Now that was indeed some record and that combined with his reputation resulted in John Fry’s newly built row of cottages taking on the name of Jubilee Cottages, a name they retained till their demolition in 1957.

And so to the celebrations which was held on the field by the vicarage behind the High Street.  Much of what we know of the event comes from a hand bill and a ticket of invitation which had sat behind a framed engraving of the vicar for seventy-five years.

One side was printed “1833. Eltham Jubilee, in commemoration of the 50th year the Rev. J.K. Shaw Brooke has resided within the parish as Vicar, universally beloved and respected” and invited “Peter Wakemean ... to partake on Thursday , the 5th day of September, of a dinner provided by public subscription in token of the respect and regard entertained the Vicar of the Parish Of Eltham, 1833
N.B. You are quested to wear this card with the other side in front, in a conspicuous manner, to attend on the day in the Court Yard and to bring with you a knife and fork.”

And that was what Peter Wakeman did for according to Mr Gregory “around the card are the needle marks to shew that it had been carefully sewn upon some conspicuous part of his attire.”

Along with the meal there was to be a host of activities including Gingling Matches, Scrambling for Penny Pieces, Eating Rolls and Treacle, with Dipping for Marbles, Dipping for Oranges, Climbing the Pole and Jumping in Sacks as well as  Hurdle Stakes and Flogging the Ball out of the Hole.

All of which was pretty straight forward apart from Gingling Matches which I discovered was  “an old English game in which blindfolded players try to catch one player not blindfolded who keeps jingling a bell”

And then as now the day was finished off with “A grand display of Fireworks.”

I suppose it might seem very tame but this was rural England at play, and these were the ways we would have entertained ourselves in the early 19th century.

Nor is this all, for the observant of you will have picked up on the fact that Peter had to provide his own knife and fork and that the meal had been provided by a subscription.

But in other ways our event looks forward for each guest had to bring proof of identity and wear it as both a way in to the event and as a means of securing their continued presence.

Our card may not be a smart device but it was nevertheless the way you proved who you were on the that September day.

I rather think I will now go off and search for Mr Wakeman for here I feel is yet another story.

Pictures;  from The story of Royal Eltham, R.R.C. Gregory, 1909 and published on The story of Royal Eltham, by Roy Ayers, http://www.gregory.elthamhistory.org.uk/bookpages/i001.htm

*The Story of Royal Eltham, R.R.RC. Gregory 1909

“Wally of the Whalley” Says Goodbye ......... stories of the Whalley Hotel

“Wally of the Whalley” Says Goodbye

It is one of those headlines that you just can’t miss.

“Wally of the Whalley” Says Goodbye appeared in the Manchester City News for November 16th 1951 and featured Mr and Mrs Summer who had run the Whalley Hotel for four years.

Mr Wally Summer and his wife Ethel were leaving Manchester for Anglesey, where they were to take over the Anglesey Arms.

“It's going to be a wrench leaving” he told the City News, “we’ve made hundreds of friends since we came to Brooks’ Bar.  I’ve been amazed at the number of people who have come up to wish us luck.”*

The Anglesey Arms is still there just at the edge of the Menai Bridge.

Now in the fullness of time I would like to find out more about Mr and Mrs Summer.

Painting; The Whalley Hotel,  © 2013 Peter Topping, Paintings from Pictures,
Web: www.paintingsfrompictures.co.uk

Facebook:  Paintings from Pictures
*Manchester City News November 16, 1951

University Green …….the place I discovered this week

University Green is that space off Oxford Road which on a warm sunny day is the perfect place to take in a drink with a friend or just watch people.

All of which I did this week as the heat wave continued to make many of us seek a bit of shelter and something to sip.

And while I was there, I pondered on why I had never sat here before which of course I had.

It’s just that the Green looked very different and was really just an open space with an ascending walkway which gave access to the red brick building which   was occupied by a bank, a café and some shops with the covered in bridge crossing Oxford Road.

It always struck me as a bit of a sad place, with few people and precious few customers in the shops. It was really just a place to sit waiting to meet someone, although we did once book a Greek Holiday in Delta Travel and I can remember eating something greasy in the café.

And then that red brick building was redeveloped with new interesting places offering real beer, supermarket stuff and much more.

The transition began around 2016 and was dramatic enough for me to have forgotten there was that older place.

All of which is how on Wednesday afternoon I came to take a series of pictures on a warm sunny day with heaps of people taking in a drink with a friend or just watch people.

And the history?  

That is the continuing evolution of this bit of Oxford Road, and like many I can remember the clearing of the old 19th century properties, the building of the big red precinct its transformation and the new University Green. 

Location; University Green

Pictures; taking in the sun, 2025, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

The bridges of Salford and Manchester ......... nu 2 Victoria Bridge, sometime in the 1850s

Now there is not much more to say.

 It is the work of C W Clennel sometime in the 1850s.
But there is more.
And for that I am indebted to Alan who quick as a flash, added that

"Haha, I beg to differ Andrew, there is much to say, for instance the first mention of the bridge over the river Irwell was in the Lancashire Inquisitions of 1226. 

In 1368 Thomas Bothe a wealthy Yeoman of Barton on Irwell bequeathed £30 in his will to the Bridge on which he had previously built a chapel.where prayers were to be said for the soul of the founder.In 1505, the Chapel was converted to a prison.

On September 25th 1642 was the Battle of Salford Bridge between the Parliamentary forces and the Royalists. 

On July 1776 the bridge was widened by taking down the Dungeon and extending its piers and arches. 

On July 2nd 1838 the first stone on the Salford side of Victoria Bridge was laid by Mr Elkanah Armitage, the Borough Reeve of Salford and on July the 2nd the first stone on the Salford side was laid by Mr J Brown, Borough Reeve of Manchester.

On October 16th, the central arches were washed away.

On January 7th 1839 the arches of Victoria bridge were once again destroyed in a Gale. There were to be many more great floods, but the bridge appears to have escaped further damage, here ends my little hisory of Victoria Bridge...... "

And I think pretty much does justice to the old bridge.  Thank you Alan

Location; Salford

Picture, Victoria Bridge, C W Clennell, m77145 courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

When a bit of the Ship Canal came to Longford Park ……

This is one of the desks which once belonged to the Manchester Ship Canal.

The desk, 2025

I like the idea that it has come home to Longford Park because one of the prime movers of the Ship Canal project was John Rylands who lived in the big house in the grounds which is now the park.

To be strictly accurate this bit of ship canal history now resides a few yards away in the home of Juliette Tomlinson who has written a fictional account of Mr. Rylands and his wife Enriqueta.

The book, Longford A Manchester Love Story came out last year and has caught the imagination of everyone who has read it.*

And so, it is fitting that the second in the trilogy is being written on that desk and explores his contribution to the Canal and of course to the relationship between John and Enriqueta.

I have to confess that standing in front of the desk this morning, I did what we all would do and “touched a bit of history”.  

Longford Hall former home of John and Enriqueta, 1914

To be very honest while Juliette was out of the room I did more than run my had over the polished surface and sitting at the desk I scribbled a note to myself and pondered on the generations of clerks who will have laboured away writing up minutes, checking receipts and composing letters to long vanished shipping companies.

The romantic in me even whiled away the minutes wondering if the man himself used the desk, but that would be unhistorical tosh, so instead I looked to see if any bored clerk had left their name carved in the wood.

Longford Park, 1914

I didn’t but I will await Juliette to do the full search and report back.

Leaving me just to say it had holes for inkwells and a bank of electric sockets which will have been installed long after the first ships sailed up the canal into the docks.

Pictures, The Ship Canal desk, 2025, courtesy of Juliette Tomlinson, the book Longford, 2024, Longford Hall, 1914 from the series Longford Park, issued by Tuck and Sons, courtesy of Tuck DB, http://tuckdb.org/, 

That desk, 2025

*Longford A Manchester Love Story, available from Chorlton Bookshop, Waterstones and The Squeeze Press, www.woodenbooks.com

Chorlton’s mysterious eight ………. and an insight into our past

Now the history of Chorlton-cum-Hardy just keeps giving.

“Bowling Green Inn and old Church C c H”

So I am back looking again at eight paintings which were loaned to me by Julie Gaskell.

Each is of a time before now and range across Chorlton, from the small hamlet of Hardy across to the southern end of the old village and back along what is now Beech Road and east toward Hough End Hall.

And they include wattle and daub cottages, the smithy, as well as the old Bowling Green pub, and Barlow Hall.

The artist is unnamed, but I think they are by J Montgomery who painted a huge number of Chorlton scenes from sometime in the 1940s through to the mid-1960s.  

He remains a bit of a mystery with no one owning up to have known him.  Manchester Libraries who hold a collection of his paintings have no biographical information on him.

“Cottage Beech Road C cum Hardy”

But with the help of Andy Robertson, I am fairly confident he lived in Chorlton, and pretty much only painted scenes of the township.

The quality of his work is erratic, but together they offer up images of what Chorlton was like in the 19th century.

Some look to be imaginative reconstruction loosely based on photographs while most seem to be a faithful reproduction taken from picture postcards.

So the painting “Ale House in 1618 at Hough End Hall before Hough End Hall was built” drifts into pure speculation and is historically inaccurate given that our Hough End Hall was built in the 1590s.

In the same way “Bowling Green Inn and old Church C c H” is quite clearly based on at least one photograph from the late 19th century. 

As is “Cottage Beech Road C cum Hardy” which is Sutton’s Cottages which stood on the present site of the Launderette bar and restaurant.  The cottage dates from sometime in the 18th century and was demolished in the early 1890s.

"Barlow Hall, view from the meadows"

Others “Hough End Hall Old Hall or Manor House of Manchester” resemble photographs I have seen to suggest they are fairly accurate.

An even “Pitts Brow Edge Lane where new church and Stockton Range now stand” for which there will be no photographic evidence might be a mix of the artist’s imagination and descriptions which appeared in T Ellwood’s History of Chorlton-cum-Hardy which appeared over 26 weeks in the South Manchester Gazette between the winter of 1885 and the spring of the following year.

So there you have it ….. eight mystery paintings most of which look to be based on old photographs, some of which have themselves been lost, and take us back to that rural Chorlton of the mid 19th century.

"Behind the Smithy, Beech Road C c H"

In some cases, it is difficult to guarantee their accuracy, but using maps, and written records I think we can be confident that we are almost back to the Chorlton cum Hardy of the 1850s.

Leaving me just to say the eight look to be reproductions of originals, have been laminated and framed.

So thank you Julie who spotted them in a shop and had to buy all eight.

Location; Chorlton

Pictures, eight paintings, by an unknown artist, courtesy of Julie Gaskell.

Down at the Castle in the High Street with a bit of historical magic

Now one of the best things about history is when you get to touch it.

And for me it doesn’t that matter much whether it’s a Roman coin or a glass medicine bottle from the beginning of the last century.

To touch the object and know that somewhere on it will be the fingerprints of the person who first made it and a story that will twist and turn in all directions is magic.

One of my greatest treasures is a Viking oyster shell which had lain in the mud of Jorvik for a thousand years before the archaeologists of the City of York brought it back into the day light.

Back in 1978 when it was uncovered there were so many that they were put in a wooden barrel and were on sale for 10p.

The other find was from the back of our shed where Dad had carefully placed thirty copper earth rods made for one of those very early wireless sets.

The batch dated from the 1920s, had sat in our garden shed in Well Hall for years and had been made in the Acnaconda Works, Salford which is just down the road.

All of which is an introduction to this 17th century trade token which Tricia shared with me.

Tokens like this were issued by traders in the absence of low value coinage, and was a practice which extended into the 18th century.

In Eltham the oldest dates from 1649 and bears the names of Nathaniel and Tasmin Mercer who were running the Castle, while another from 1667.

They were unearthed when the old Castle pub was demolished, and also found was one for William Crich of the Grocers’ Arms Deptford dated 1663.

Now imagine how over the moon I was when Tricia said  "I have been investigating the attached farthing tokens concerning The Castle for some time. 

I have been trying to find out who the initials belong to (NT & wife T) reading your post today I now know it to be Nathaniel & Tasmin Mercer. So I am handing it over to you to add to your blog seeing as you have done all the hard work.

The description is as follows. 17c farthing token issued by NM and wife T at the Castelle Taverne, Issue date 1649, denomination farthing, metal copper alloy, diameter 14mm."

And that is it.  A pretty neat bit of joint research.

Location, Eltham

Picture, the 1649 Castle trade token courtesy of Tricia Lesley